Most large organisations remain stuck in a "performative AI" stage, rolling out tools without embedding them into meaningful work, according to a new report from AI training and enablement firm Section.  

The company's AI Proficiency Report, based on data from more than 5,000 knowledge workers in the US, UK, and Canada, finds that while AI access is spreading across large companies, business value is not keeping pace.  

Section reports that 55% of knowledge workers now use AI at work at least once a week, yet 85% do not have an AI use case that delivers measurable business value.

More than a quarter of employees (26%) do not use AI for work at all, and fewer than three per cent qualify as AI "practitioners" or "experts" capable of embedding the technology into workflows to achieve substantive productivity gains.  

"Too many AI initiatives still focus on access and basic prompting," said Section CEO Greg Shove in a statement. "But the new standard requires employees to use AI in ways that actually change how work gets done - and almost no one is there."  

Still in 'performative AI'  

The research assesses AI knowledge, usage, prompting skill, attitudes, and organisational readiness, including hands-on evaluations of how employees construct prompts and the quality of their work-related use cases.  

It concludes that the gap between AI hype and results is being driven less by tools or training budgets and more by shallow, low-impact applications that rarely touch core processes.  

"Most organisations are still doing 'performative AI' - roll out some tools, run a lunch and learn, and call it transformation," Shove said."But they haven't done the actual work of rethinking how work is done with AI. The result is exactly what we're seeing: everyone has access, almost no one is generating value."  

The report comes as research forecasts that 2026 will herald a more advanced era for AI at work, where organisations move past the adoption stage.  

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